Daily Dynamo Selections – Manchester City v Barcelona

Betting Tips, Dynamo Bet, La Liga | Article posted on February 17th, 2025

The Champions League gets back into gear with this mouth-watering tie between two of the best attacking teams in Europe. Both Manchester City and Barcelona had morale boosting victories at the weekend and now face off at the Etihad in one of this or any other season's most hotly anticipated fixtures. There is little to go on in terms of past meetings between these two teams as this is the first ever fixture between them.

Manchester City have been incredible at home this season, and saw off another opponent on Saturday when they knocked Chelsea out of the FA Cup. However, they were rather humiliated on their home turf by Bayern Munich earlier on in this Champions League campaign, and this stage of European competition becomes a tactical minefield for any team competing in it.

Both teams have weaknesses that can be exploited. All season long, Barcelona have been appalling at defending set-pieces, and City's very tall team can take advantage of this. However, whereas City have blown away teams with attacking football, against Barca the obvious way to play is to defend deep, pack the midfield, and hit them on the break. This is anathema to City, who usually love to dominate possession and territorially and press forward.

City must also decide whether to play their usual two up front. The selection against Chelsea suggests that Negredo will play up front on his own, which means that City will be fielding an extremely unfamiliar formation in this match.

We've seen all season long that City can leave big gaps between midfield and defence and there is no-one better at exploiting this than Barcelona. But they're not the most secure side at the back, and I can see this being a fairly high scoring, but narrow, win for Barcelona.

Selections: Safe Bet – Over 2.5 Goals (13/20 with BetVictor), Value Bet – Barcelona to win (8/5 with BetVictor)

Rating: 0.0/10 (0 votes cast)